AQMD considers seeking a one-half cent sales tax in four counties for clean-air programs

The South Coast Air Quality Management District is pursuing a one-half cent sales tax measure that would raise about $1.4 billion each year to pay for clean-air projects such as zero-emission cars, trucks, trains and cargo equipment.

Some compare the proposal to ballot measures recently passed by voters benefitting transportation districts across Southern California, upping sales taxes to pay for green transit infrastructure, including electric-powered light-rail, subways, bike lanes and freeway improvements.

However, unlike county transit agencies, the air district serves multiple counties and has not passed a sales tax measure before, making this attempt much more complicated and requiring a two-step process:

First, the four-county SCAQMD is asking the state Legislature for authorization allowing a sales tax increase to appear on the ballot within its jurisdiction, which includes Orange County and the non-desert portions of Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Riverside counties (including the Coachella Valley), Derrick Alatorre, deputy executive officer for public affairs and media, said.

Alatorre said the air district needs legislation establishing a four-county voting district, stretching over 10,743 square miles and including 15 million people. He said the district has not yet found a lawmaker to carry the bill. The deadline for new bills is Feb. 22.

Second, assuming the bill is adopted and signed into law, then an individual or group can gather signatures to qualify the measure as a ballot initiative. Or, the 13-member SCAQMD Governing Board can place the sales tax measure on the ballot itself within the newly created four-county voting district, Alatorre explained.

“This is the first of its kind I’ve heard of in my 15 years at the League,” said Jennifer Quan, regional spokesperson for the League of California Cities. Quan estimated that if all goes as planned, the soonest the initiative could go before voters would be November 2020.

Although in early stages, supporters and opponents already are taking sides.

“I am strongly opposed,” said San Bernardino Country Supervisor and AQMD Governing Board member Janice Rutherford. “We don’t need another tax.”

Rutherford said the district already has a revenue source for clean-vehicle projects, the greenhouse gas reduction fund known as Cap-and-Trade. The program, which began in 2013, essentially requires industry to pay to pollute, acquiring permits for each ton of carbon they release into the atmosphere. The permits are sold and traded at quarterly auctions, and some are distributed to industry for free.

These funds have been used to pay for the bullet train, electric and hydrogen-powered buses, electric charging stations and for agriculture to reduce methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

“The state has a vigorous Cap-and-Trade program that produces tens of millions of dollars that is supposed to be addressing the negative impacts of carbon use, climate change and pollution issues. There is plenty of money available through that program. We don’t need another tax,” Rutherford said Friday after the district’s Legislative Committee heard a presentation on the proposed tax.

Board member Joseph Lyou took the opposite view, comparing the tax to the Green New Deal introduced in Washington by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-New York and Sen.Ed Markey, D-Massachusetts.

Lyou said the $1.4 billion would bring Southern California into compliance for ozone and particulates by 2023, something required by the Clean Air Act. If not, the area would face severe sanctions, he said.

“This is incentive money for replacing dirty mobile sources, like diesel trucks, buses, ships and locomotives. It changes everything. We have a chance for people to say Los Angeles no longer has pollution problems,” Lyou said.

Michael Cacciotti, AQMD board member and South Pasadena councilman, said monies could become available to replace Metrolink diesel locomotives with electrified trains.

Quan said some Southern California cities are exploring sales tax increases and are concerned an AQMD tax increase would put them over the state ceiling of 10.25 percent.

“So cities are trying to place a ballot measure before the AQMD can do that. They want to capture the sales tax locally,” Quan said.

The Legislative Committee report goes before the SCAQMD Governing Board on March 1.